Marvel Studios closed out an elaborate Hall H presentation Saturday night by officially confirming that Oscar winner Brie Larson would be the first actress to headline one of their massively successful superhero movie in 2018’s Captain Marvel. The 6,000-plus audience erupted into thunderous applause and the reception online was also largely enthusiastic. There were a few die-hard Captain Marvel comic-book fans who weren’t entirely sold on the idea but, according to comic writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, Larson deserves the gig.

DeConnick—who now writes the enormously popular comic Bitch Planet—didn’t create the character of Carol Danvers, who has been kicking around the Marvel comics universe (mostly as “Ms. Marvel”) since 1968. Nor was it her idea in the early 2010s to give Carol the promotion from Ms. to Captain. But working as a Marvel freelancer, DeConnick wrote Carol’s Captain Marvel debut from 2012 to 2015 and, though she won’t take full credit, is widely considered the reason for the character’s massive popularity. So the die-hard, vocal Danvers fans (whom DeConnick nicknamed “the Carol Corps” during her run) were eager to see what their unofficial leader would say about the Larson news. But last night on Twitter—barring a few tacitly supportive retweets—the usually vocal DeConnick kept quiet. The fact that she was just getting back home to Portland from her own whirlwind weekend at Comic-Con might have something to do with that. But don’t mistake her silence for disapproval.

“I was very careful about not wanting to cheer for anyone in particular,” DeConnick said of the line she’s been walking ever since the Captain Marvel movie was announced in 2014. Speaking with Vanity Fair over the phone Sunday morning, DeConnick added, “I’m in a position where so many of the fans will look to me for a cue. I didn’t want anyone who was cast to feel unsupported or second choice.”

Did DeConnick have a different actress in mind for the role? She did, but you’d need a time machine to pull it off. “My dream casting—or the actor who is the voice in my head—is Kathleen Turner from about 1983. She could be both sexy and awkward and powerful. She could do all of those things at once. From what I can tell, Brie Larson can do those things too. She has a gravitas and she has a power to her. But you can see she also has a sense of humor and playfulness there. I’m psyched.”

So what does DeConnick make of the Carol Corps members who think Larson is too young and, at five-foot-seven, not physically imposing enough to play Danvers? She sees their point but stops short of agreeing. “The only physical thing I wanted for Carol—I was hoping for Carol to have some height. In the books she’s five-foot-eleven. There’s a little bit of an intimidation factor that comes with her being so tall.” But as the formidable-yet-diminutive DeConnick points out, “I’m five-feet tall and I can be intimidating.”

Of the backlash, DeConnick—with some of her trademark sharpness—observes, “We spend so much time telling women, you’re not this enough and you’re not that.” That sharpness intensifies when she starts talking about age:

Look, we all know that Hollywood has an age problem with women. Would
I like to see more women onscreen over 40? Fuck yes. Women with power
as protagonists and physical heroines? Fuck yes. But it’s hard for me
to opine on Carol’s age without knowing what the film is. Are we going
to be dealing with Carol when she got her powers? My Carol was a
Colonel [in the Air Force], so she was older. But I don’t want that to
undermine my support of a young woman who has a billion-dollar
franchise on her shoulders. I am emphatically on her team no matter how
old she is, because she’s the one who got it. She’s publicly had this
role for 24 hours. I have a lot people following my lead, and I’m not
going to tell the choir that she’s not right.

And that enthusiastic support, DeConnick points out, is all the more important given how rare comic-book movies (or any blockbuster) featuring female protagonists are. Alluding to the recent all-female Ghostbusters controversy, she says, “When we cast women as leads in an action film we saddle them with a responsibility of representing the possible success or failure of all women-led films for the next five years. When a man leads a film that fails, that film fails. We don’t say, ‘Well, clearly men can’t carry a genre feature.‘” That comment calls to mind the abortive attempts to get female-led Catwoman and Elektra franchises off the ground a decade ago. Those were box-office disappointments and studios have seemed reluctant to try their hand at another female-led comic-book film since. “I want her back,” DeConnick said of the potential for Larson to recur in the Avengers franchise. “She has a lot to carry. Do I wish there was a wider representation of women onscreen? I do, and I’m sure Brie does too.”

Larson is far from the first Marvel actor to be on the receiving end of criticism from comic-book fans—in fact the backlash around her casting is on the very mild end of the spectrum. But DeConnick says it’s a cycle she’s familiar with and one that usually evaporates once audiences have seen the performance onscreen. “Marvel has done an incredible job managing their C.U. and their casting. I so love Robert Downey Jr. and I don’t think I would have thought of him as Iron Man. Of course, it’s the most perfect thing in the world.”

DeConnick—who no longer freelances for Marvel but left on very good terms—knows as little as the rest of us about what Larson’s movie will be about and isn’t inclined to weigh in on what the plot should be. “I am not an insider in this at all. Marvel East and Marvel West are two very different animals. We’re freelancers.” We’re not entitled to insider information. But odds are the screenplay—which is being written by *Guardians of the Galaxy’*s Nicole Perlman and *Inside Out’*s Meg LeFauve—will be anchored in the world DeConnick helped create. “I would feel very proud if I recognize my story’s DNA, but I wouldn’t want to take any credit from Nicole and Meg,” DeConnick says.

But she does have a few ideas for the costuming department. The now iconic Captain Marvel look came about during DeConnick’s run and gave Carol Danvers pants for the first time in her four-decade Marvel career. The change from thigh-high boots and bathing suit to jumpsuit came courtesy of DeConnick’s editor, Stephen Wacker.

When Wacker pitched the idea to DeConnick, it was so revolutionary in the world of comics, she wrote back to him: “I can’t tell if you’re kidding.” The design, courtesy of artist Jamie McKelvie, is just one part of Captain Marvel’s feminist legacy.

But, surprisingly, DeConnick isn’t married to the outfit. “What works in comic books and what works in live action is very different. You want to have a sense of that? Just walk around a comic-book convention. See the dudes who champion these very skimpy costumes judging women and berating them for wearing it in real life. What will work on the page and what will work in three dimensions is very different.” And while DeConnick likes that her Carol had a suit that pays homage to her military background, it’s actually a controversial helmet that the writer most hopes to see onscreen.

“I love the helmet! That is not a universal opinion. After we left the book, they got rid of the helmet. I have a lot of boring continuity arguments on the history of the helmet and a list of reasons as to why the helmet exists. I want the helmet!” Some Carol fans, sadly, would not agree.

These days, DeConnick and her husband—comic-book writer Matt Fraction—are enjoying huge success with their creator-owned stories and an overall deal with Universal television. (“I got to write lines for Vincent D’Onofrio!” she gushes of her work on NBC’s new Wizard of Oz series Emerald City.) For many comic-book writers, being financially successful and independent of major labels like Marvel and DC is living the dream. But should Marvel come calling for DeConnick to weigh in on future Danvers properties, she wouldn’t necessarily say no. “Marvel has the longest-running continuous narrative in human history. I got to stitch on that quilt for a little bit and nobody can take that away from me.”